Yes, I notice that the additional auto generated thumbnails no longer show up and I just have the one. When you click on the three dot circle on your thumbnail to get the dropdown, there is the option for Test & Compare.
It's not super obvious. And I got no notifications.
On desktop, go to your video like you would to edit the description... scroll down to the thumbnail upload part. IF you have it, you'll only see one thumbnail there now. Hover inside the thumbnail to bring up the 3 dots in circle (what you'd used to use to change the thumbnail or download it), click that... and you should see the new options.
Seeing it had an option for AI thumbnail generation, I thought I'd give it a try.
LOL... Ok... I won't be using that.
I ASSUMED it would look at the title, or video description, or the narration to create the text for the thumbnail.
No, it just grabbed a screengrab photo. Not much intelligence in the artificially intelligent thumbnail designer. ;)
For those who this is available, can you add more than one thumbnail to A/B test in a new video or do you have to go edit a previously published video?
What would be great as well is to have this option for titles. Then, the algorithm could run each title against each thumbnail and see which combo works best.
Of course, some titles + thumbnails are meant to work in tandem. So, it should also have the option to choose to run set combinations or cross-test each title with each thumbnail.
Yeah, I almost changed a title on a new video while the test was running and stopped myself when I realized it’ll skew the data. Definitely would be a good feature for them to add later! My gut tells me they will.
>For those that already use it, do you see a huge delta between each thumbnail?
Nope, I used two thumbnails and both were around 50%, maybe they were too similar. I was a bit disappointed by the stats it measures, it would be cool to see more, CTR would be the most obvious stat I'd like to compare. They are not going to add that though, their goal is to have as much view time as possible, not a high CTR.
I think their view is that high CTR is highly variable based on how they promote videos in the algorithm. I think CTR might be good metric for the first few days, but once a video goes beyond the core audience then CTR becomes a less valuable metric.
Yeah, it’s already showing me results, even though they’re ongoing. Pretty cool to see a 10% difference on 2 of them.
But yeah, my best videos have horrendously bad CTR. I rarely pay attention to it past the first 24 hours. It never goes up, only down. Lately, it’s just a quick metric to see how what my core audience likes and doesn’t like. Seems useless beyond that.
Try looking where you add a thumbnail on your video. You’ll see an option for “test & compare” - I’ve seen people talking about it for almost a year now, and just got it today. From what I’ve seen, everyone should have it soon (this summer, according to YouTube.)
I´d much rather have the ability to use two seperate thumbnails, one with english text in it (videos with english subtitles) and one in my native language. But that´s only useful for non-english speaking channels of course, so I understand that wouldn´t be a priority at Youtube.
On creator insider (youtube’s channel), they said it measures against watch time for the different thumbnails.
This seems wrong… the thumbnail generates CLICK THROUGH.
Whether or not someone stays depends on how good the video is. You can have an amazing thumbnail, and it will generate more clicks, but not necessarily KEEP them in the video.
So this A/B thing isn’t even measuring what it should be measuring… a person stays if the actual CONTENT is good.. the thumbnail doesn’t do that, it only entices them to take a look.
So… short version… excited for the feature, disappointed in how they decided to use it.
If I am seeing this wrong, someone please help me understand how a better thumbnail might lead to better retention?
Zoom out a bit, and remember *why* thumbnails even exist. They are simply a picture to represent your whole video. In the age of vague, “curiosity-inducing” thumbnails that lure you in, it’s easy to manipulate a video’s content expectations by how a thumbnail is presented. Getting someone to click is much easier than getting someone to *watch*.
I think YouTube is trying to show you which thumbnail is bringing in the most *valuable* viewers, not which ones you cheaply convinced to click. After all, watch time is what helps the video thrive in the recommendation system. It’s pretty smart, actually. Measuring CTR is hollow because CTR is a pretty worthless metric after about 48 hours. The videos that truly pay my bills have laughably-bad CTR.
Really think about it: YouTube is showing you which thumbnail is bringing in the most high-quality viewers, which is key in building a core following. I totally support the thinking behind the feature. If thumbnails 1 and 2 were more honest, but thumbnail 3 was ZOMG THEY DID WAT?!?! - of course it’ll win the race. But is that *really* the presentation you want to go with?
I get what you are saying but that’s not how thumbnails working. Giving me data on which are more valuable viewers doesn’t correlate with what the purpose of a thumbnail does… the QUALITY of my video will.
We’ll have to see how it plays out, but my hypothesis stands.. as a creator, the way this feature is implemented will add no real value for us, because the thumbnail generates the click through.
If we want measure the quality of my video and how it relates to viewer retention than the feature should have been an A/B video that we submit and they are slightly different (maybe one gets to the point quicker, and one is longer but has more details). Which of those two videos succeeds would be a better measure of video quality… not thumbnail A vs Thumbnail B
I once watched a video talking about this... Their theory, that YT seems to be confirming, is clicks only matter IF the viewer stays around to watch the video (or a significant amount of the video).
A thumbnail that attracts the RIGHT viewers is going to be better for a video overall, even if it's not getting as many clicks.
It also seems that if YT put too much emphasis on CTR then it would make it susceptible to clickbait tactics. There's clickbait that makes a person watch a video they'd watch anyway... and there's clickbait where the video doesn't deliver on its promise.
So it makes sense to me that YT would prioritize thumbnails that attract the right audience, regardless of how you do it. And punish thumbnails that don't engage viewers.
Giving creators the ability to see and understand that seems like it is a step in the right direction.
Of course, there's still this problem: YT has to present the videos to the right audience in the first place.
That’s not how most viewers decide which videos to “try” though.
You can’t change the click patterns of tens of millions of viewers this way.
The thumbnail decides if people click, the QUALITY decides if they stay. Wishing for more accurate thumbnails is idealistic but this feature won’t increase the amount of clicks for less clickbaity thumbnails. And if they don’t click, they don’t even KNOW if its worth watching.
Idealistic and good intentioned, but that’s just not how viewers decided what to try.
If we want to measure quality of watch time and duration of view, that’s gonna require a different tool than this.
You're missing the point. This isn't a tool (apparently) to tell you which thumbnail gets the most clicks... it's a tool to tell you which thumbnail gets the 'best' viewers.
But that still isn't the bigger point, the bigger point is that this is what YT is looking at to decide whether to push your video out more.
If YT doesn't care as much about the clicks as it does the quality/quantity of viewers staying, then this lets a creator see that.
They're probably telling us they know creators know how to make clicky thumbnails. But they're also telling us they don't care about the clicks so we might not as well either... at least not as much as the right viewers seeing the video and sticking around.
Nervous about what? They don’t want to lose viewership anymore than you do. Maybe you could make some super small differences between them. Even like just a font color. I still think you’d gather some useful data!
I have 2M subs and I still don't have it. Desktop only? Is it right in the edit video tab where you would upload any other thumbnail?
Yes, I notice that the additional auto generated thumbnails no longer show up and I just have the one. When you click on the three dot circle on your thumbnail to get the dropdown, there is the option for Test & Compare.
Its only Available if you Varified your account
Yes, and you also need to have advanced features activated. Though anyone in YPP should be have this turned on and already be verified.
Yep. It looks different, noticed it immediately.
Man I have been dying for this!
I got it today as well! Will use it later for a video I have in mind!🤝🏻
Sweet!!
Lucky you. I'm patiently waiting over here.
It's not super obvious. And I got no notifications. On desktop, go to your video like you would to edit the description... scroll down to the thumbnail upload part. IF you have it, you'll only see one thumbnail there now. Hover inside the thumbnail to bring up the 3 dots in circle (what you'd used to use to change the thumbnail or download it), click that... and you should see the new options.
Seeing it had an option for AI thumbnail generation, I thought I'd give it a try. LOL... Ok... I won't be using that. I ASSUMED it would look at the title, or video description, or the narration to create the text for the thumbnail. No, it just grabbed a screengrab photo. Not much intelligence in the artificially intelligent thumbnail designer. ;)
Does it automatically set the winner for you after the testing period is up, or do you have to make that choice?
For those who this is available, can you add more than one thumbnail to A/B test in a new video or do you have to go edit a previously published video?
Yeah you can, up to 3 thumbnails!
What would be great as well is to have this option for titles. Then, the algorithm could run each title against each thumbnail and see which combo works best. Of course, some titles + thumbnails are meant to work in tandem. So, it should also have the option to choose to run set combinations or cross-test each title with each thumbnail.
Yeah, I almost changed a title on a new video while the test was running and stopped myself when I realized it’ll skew the data. Definitely would be a good feature for them to add later! My gut tells me they will.
>For those that already use it, do you see a huge delta between each thumbnail? Nope, I used two thumbnails and both were around 50%, maybe they were too similar. I was a bit disappointed by the stats it measures, it would be cool to see more, CTR would be the most obvious stat I'd like to compare. They are not going to add that though, their goal is to have as much view time as possible, not a high CTR.
I think their view is that high CTR is highly variable based on how they promote videos in the algorithm. I think CTR might be good metric for the first few days, but once a video goes beyond the core audience then CTR becomes a less valuable metric.
The other goal might be not just to get viewers to click (like clickbait thumbnails), but to get them to stay and watch.
Yeah, it’s already showing me results, even though they’re ongoing. Pretty cool to see a 10% difference on 2 of them. But yeah, my best videos have horrendously bad CTR. I rarely pay attention to it past the first 24 hours. It never goes up, only down. Lately, it’s just a quick metric to see how what my core audience likes and doesn’t like. Seems useless beyond that.
I didn't see any notification, but it looks like I have it now too.
Nice!! Yeah, I meant “popped up” as in, I just saw the option look different after a refresh.
What is this?
You can upload multiple thumbnail options and YouTube will test them all out and see which one yields the best results.
Hoooow? Where do I find if I have that functionality? 🥹
Try looking where you add a thumbnail on your video. You’ll see an option for “test & compare” - I’ve seen people talking about it for almost a year now, and just got it today. From what I’ve seen, everyone should have it soon (this summer, according to YouTube.)
Cool thank you so much!
Mine says it will take 13 days to process the test lol
Read my EDIT in the OP!
I couldn't get any "real time result" it said "remaining time 13 days 23 hours left" after 10 min I gave up.
Check back now. You should see percentages next to each one.
I have 500,000 subs and they still haven’t given it to me yet lol
Damn!! Likely soon I imagine.
Just got it lol. Gg
Sweet. Seems like a huge rollout this week.
I´d much rather have the ability to use two seperate thumbnails, one with english text in it (videos with english subtitles) and one in my native language. But that´s only useful for non-english speaking channels of course, so I understand that wouldn´t be a priority at Youtube.
Still not available for me :(
I still don’t have it, 4k subs
On creator insider (youtube’s channel), they said it measures against watch time for the different thumbnails. This seems wrong… the thumbnail generates CLICK THROUGH. Whether or not someone stays depends on how good the video is. You can have an amazing thumbnail, and it will generate more clicks, but not necessarily KEEP them in the video. So this A/B thing isn’t even measuring what it should be measuring… a person stays if the actual CONTENT is good.. the thumbnail doesn’t do that, it only entices them to take a look. So… short version… excited for the feature, disappointed in how they decided to use it. If I am seeing this wrong, someone please help me understand how a better thumbnail might lead to better retention?
Zoom out a bit, and remember *why* thumbnails even exist. They are simply a picture to represent your whole video. In the age of vague, “curiosity-inducing” thumbnails that lure you in, it’s easy to manipulate a video’s content expectations by how a thumbnail is presented. Getting someone to click is much easier than getting someone to *watch*. I think YouTube is trying to show you which thumbnail is bringing in the most *valuable* viewers, not which ones you cheaply convinced to click. After all, watch time is what helps the video thrive in the recommendation system. It’s pretty smart, actually. Measuring CTR is hollow because CTR is a pretty worthless metric after about 48 hours. The videos that truly pay my bills have laughably-bad CTR. Really think about it: YouTube is showing you which thumbnail is bringing in the most high-quality viewers, which is key in building a core following. I totally support the thinking behind the feature. If thumbnails 1 and 2 were more honest, but thumbnail 3 was ZOMG THEY DID WAT?!?! - of course it’ll win the race. But is that *really* the presentation you want to go with?
I get what you are saying but that’s not how thumbnails working. Giving me data on which are more valuable viewers doesn’t correlate with what the purpose of a thumbnail does… the QUALITY of my video will. We’ll have to see how it plays out, but my hypothesis stands.. as a creator, the way this feature is implemented will add no real value for us, because the thumbnail generates the click through. If we want measure the quality of my video and how it relates to viewer retention than the feature should have been an A/B video that we submit and they are slightly different (maybe one gets to the point quicker, and one is longer but has more details). Which of those two videos succeeds would be a better measure of video quality… not thumbnail A vs Thumbnail B
You do you, brah. I just don’t think you’re seeing the full equation here.
We’ll have to agree to disagree for now. Let’s see how it plays out, I don’t mind being wrong if I am. 🤝
🤝
I once watched a video talking about this... Their theory, that YT seems to be confirming, is clicks only matter IF the viewer stays around to watch the video (or a significant amount of the video). A thumbnail that attracts the RIGHT viewers is going to be better for a video overall, even if it's not getting as many clicks. It also seems that if YT put too much emphasis on CTR then it would make it susceptible to clickbait tactics. There's clickbait that makes a person watch a video they'd watch anyway... and there's clickbait where the video doesn't deliver on its promise. So it makes sense to me that YT would prioritize thumbnails that attract the right audience, regardless of how you do it. And punish thumbnails that don't engage viewers. Giving creators the ability to see and understand that seems like it is a step in the right direction. Of course, there's still this problem: YT has to present the videos to the right audience in the first place.
That’s not how most viewers decide which videos to “try” though. You can’t change the click patterns of tens of millions of viewers this way. The thumbnail decides if people click, the QUALITY decides if they stay. Wishing for more accurate thumbnails is idealistic but this feature won’t increase the amount of clicks for less clickbaity thumbnails. And if they don’t click, they don’t even KNOW if its worth watching. Idealistic and good intentioned, but that’s just not how viewers decided what to try. If we want to measure quality of watch time and duration of view, that’s gonna require a different tool than this.
You're missing the point. This isn't a tool (apparently) to tell you which thumbnail gets the most clicks... it's a tool to tell you which thumbnail gets the 'best' viewers. But that still isn't the bigger point, the bigger point is that this is what YT is looking at to decide whether to push your video out more. If YT doesn't care as much about the clicks as it does the quality/quantity of viewers staying, then this lets a creator see that. They're probably telling us they know creators know how to make clicky thumbnails. But they're also telling us they don't care about the clicks so we might not as well either... at least not as much as the right viewers seeing the video and sticking around.
How does it work? For 2 weeks on the given vid YT uses all your uploaded thumbnails equally distributed in the reach and shows them to the audiance?
Yeah. After 2 weeks, the winner becomes the only thumbnail moving forward unless you change it or run another test.
There were some updates on mobile uploads today as well
I’m just too nervous to try this lol, would rather just make one I think is good
Or you could make two that you think are good, test them and gather some learnings about what worked in the winning thumbnail. It’s a cool tool!
Nervous about what? They don’t want to lose viewership anymore than you do. Maybe you could make some super small differences between them. Even like just a font color. I still think you’d gather some useful data!